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Topic: Secondary yes or no (Read 4840 times)

So I have been reading a bunch of posts from another forum about not ever racking to a second fermentor. They claim to get the best beer when they leave it in primary for a month and then bottle. They are talking about flavor and clarity. I was going to rack to a Carboy in a few days but not sure. They had some good arguments. Thoughts?

"I, and Jamil and White Labs and Wyeast Labs, do not recommend racking to a secondary fermenter for ANY ale, except when conducting an actual second fermentation, such as adding fruit or souring. Racking to prevent autolysis is not necessary, and therefore the risk of oxidation is completely avoidable. Even lagers do not require racking to a second fermenter before lagering."

If you keg there is really no need to use a second carboy as a secondary. The keg serves as a far better secondary (or bright tank) because you can purge it completely with Co2. You can then either blow the yeast out through the dip tube or, if you want to be sure the beer is completely clear so that the sediment doesn't stir up when you move the beer, rack the beer to another keg via a jumper. A shortened dip tube on the secondary or bright tank keg can help you leave the yeast behind.

If you bottle I can maybe see why a carboy secondary can be useful because you can leave a lot of sediment behind, but be aware that by using a secondary and bottling you will be racking the beer up to 3 times (ones to the secondary, once to the bottling bucket and then once to the bottles) so you will most definitely be picking up some oxygen and potential contaminants.

OTOH as others have mentioned you can get the beer really bright by cold crashing on the yeast cake and racking directly from primary to bottling bucket. But there are a good share of homebrewers who don't have the cold storage space to cold crash 5+ gallons of beer.

As far as yeast stripping the hop oils and aroma, it is best to dry hop once the yeast has flocculated. But you can always just add more yeast or crash the yeast in the primary first and then add the dry hops. I don;t understand why the yeast cake would affect hop oils or resins. My understanding is it is the yeast floccing out that drags these oils out of suspension.

I leave the beer in the primary until the krausen drops and the beer clears somewhat, then I check the gravity and rack when I get at least two of the same gravity readings on two consecutive days. I like to crash cool the primary at this juncture to allow a lot of the remaining yeast in suspension to drop out. I'll then keg the beer and raise the temp to 60-65F to dry hop or I'll keep the beer chilled if I want to force carbonate.